Metacritic reviews

Although the script could certainly use pruning, Suncoast balances intellect and emotion to deliver clever, memorable lines and a climax that will leave you weeping.

If Suncoast ultimately lacks major insights, it is hard to argue that it at least combats its slenderness with a poignant sense of empathy and compassion for draining emotional hardships.

Where Suncoast stumbles is when it sacrifices specificity for generic sentiment.

As “mixed bag” coming-of-age dramas go, Suncoast surprises with its heart and consistently punches above its emotional weight.

There’s a core of authentically devastating family experience and personal investment that saves Suncoast from its unskilled handling, giving this grief drama, coming-of-age combo a heart to counter its predictability.

Tears may well be shed but it is the actors who are delivering the goods rather than the script.

An amiable ensemble effort, with two sturdy lead performances, Suncoast is reminiscent of the minor-key, quirky-charming ’90s dramedies so often discovered by the Sundance Film Festival. This is a fine thing; there are deserved laughs and tears. It is also a slightly awkward thing.

It’s a movie that seems all too aware that life is hard, but desperately wants to simplify it. In doing that, it does a disservice to its own ideas.

Suncoast joins a more forgettable crop of teen movies, lacking plausible character development and sufficient depth to make its themes resonate.

Suncoast spends much of its runtime trafficking in tiresome coming-of-age tropes, until the resulting crowd-pleaser has snuffed out much of what’s so singular about its central story.